Journal Article

Effect of appropriate empirical antimicrobial therapy on mortality of patients with Gram-negative bloodstream infections: a retrospective cohort study

Song, Zhihui, Xu, Shanshan, Han, Furong, Zhang, Chao

2023

Overview

Background Little evidence exists regarding the prevalence of pathogens in bloodstream infections (BSIs), the mortality risk, and the benefit of combination therapy over monotherapy. This study aims to describe patterns of empiric antimicrobial therapy, and the epidemiology of Gram-negative pathogens, and to investigate the effect of appropriate therapy and appropriate combination therapy on the mortality of patients with BSIs. Methods This was a retrospective cohort study including all patients with BSIs of Gram-negative pathogens from January 2017 to December 2022 in a Chinese general hospital. The in-hospital mortality was compared between appropriate and inappropriate therapy, and between monotherapy and combination therapy for patients receiving appropriate therapy. We used Cox regression analysis to identify factors independently associated with in-hospital mortality. Results We included 205 patients in the study, of whom 147 (71.71%) patients received appropriate therapy compared with 58 (28.29%) who received inappropriate therapy. The most common Gram-negative pathogen was Escherichia coli (37.56%). 131 (63.90%) patients received monotherapy and 74 (36.10%) patients received combination therapy. The in-hospital mortality was significantly lower in patients administered appropriate therapy than inappropriate therapy (16.33% vs. 48.28%, p = 0.004); adjusted hazard ratio [HR] 0.55 [95% CI 0.35–0.84], p = 0.006). In-hospital mortality was also not different in combination therapy and monotherapy in the multivariate Cox regression analyses (adjusted HR 0.42 [95% CI 0.15–1.17], p = 0.096). However, combination therapy was associated with lower mortality than monotherapy in patients with sepsis or septic shock (adjusted HR 0.94 [95% CI 0.86–1.02], p = 0.047). Conclusions Appropriate therapy was associated with a protective effect on mortality among patients with BSIs due to Gram-negative pathogens. Combination therapy was associated with improved survival in patients with sepsis or septic shock. Clinicians need to choose optical empirical antimicrobials to improve survival outcomes in patients with BSIs.

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Anti-Infective Agents / Antibiotics / Antiinfectives and antibacterials / Antimicrobial agents / Appropriate empirical antimicrobial therapy / Bacteria / Bloodstream infections / Cardiac arrhythmia / Cardiovascular disease / China / Cohort analysis / Combined Modality Therapy / Comparative analysis / Complications and side effects / Demographics / Dosage and administration / Drug resistance / E coli / Empirical analysis / Epidemiology / Escherichia coli / Forecasts and trends / Gram-negative bacteria / Gram-negative bacterial infections / Health risks / Hospitals / Humans / Infection / Infections / Infectious Diseases / Internal Medicine / Medical Microbiology / Medical research / Medicine / Medicine & Public Health / Medicine, Experimental / Mortality / Mortality risk / Parasitology / Pathogens / Patient outcomes / Prevention / Regression analysis / Retrospective Studies / Risk factors / Sensitivity analysis / Sepsis / Septic shock / Shock, Septic / Survival / Survival analysis / Therapy / Tropical Medicine / Urogenital system